1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a print protecting member suitable as a laminating member for a print obtained by recording images on paper or the like according to a recording process using a recording liquid, in particular, an ink jet recording liquid.
2. Description of the Related Art
Ink jet recording is a recording process for carrying out recording by ejecting droplets of a recording liquid from an orifice of a recording head and adhering them on a recording medium such as paper. The process is free from loud noise, requires no particular fixing treatment, and can perform high speed recording and full color recording.
The recording liquid used for ink jet recording is usually comprised chiefly of a recording agent such as a dye and, as a solvent, water or a mixture of water and various solvents.
Since an aqueous recording liquid is used as mentioned above in the ink jet recording process, the recording medium used in the recording is required to have good absorption and fixation of the recording liquid. In particular, in multi-color ink jet recording which uses recording liquids of two or more colors, the quantity of the recording liquid to be adhered on the recording medium becomes so large that the recording liquid are required to have particularly good absorption and fixation.
The recording medium have the above good performances is known to include those comprising a porous receiving layer for a recording liquid, provided on a substrate such as paper and having good absorption and fixation of the liquid.
However, in the recording medium comprising the porous receiving layer for a recording liquid, there are drawbacks that the recording medium lacks surface gloss, and that images look poor when observed even if they have been sharply recorded. These drawbacks have been noted as problems to be solved particularly when multi-color images are recorded according to the ink jet recording process to form color prints.
Moreover, since a water soluble dye is chiefly used as a recording agent in the prints thus formed, the recorded images can not necessarily have sufficient water resistance, solvent resistance and abrasion resistance.
For this reason, in order to impart gloss to the recorded images, it has been practiced to carry out laminating on the recorded image face after using a recording liquid. The laminating is a method in which a print protecting member comprising a transfer medium chiefly made of thermoplastic resins such as acrylic resins, polystyrene resins, polyester resins and polyethylene resins, which is supported on a substrate such as paper, cloth or a plastic film, is pressure sticked on the image-formed face of a recording medium by bringing the transfer medium side of the former into close contact with the latter, and thereafter the substrate is separated so that the transfer medium may remain on the recording medium, whereby the gloss, water resistance, solvent resistance and abrasion resistance are imparted to the image-recorded face. The thermoplastic resin used in the transfer medium of the print protecting member is required to have the performance of blocking resistance that may not cause any blocking even when a plurality of laminated prints are stacked for storage or transportation. It is also preferable for the print protecting member to have the performance such as folding endurance so that the transfer medium will not break even if a laminated print has been folded.
However, as the blocking resistance of a resin is improved, the stickiness thereof is proportionally lowered to usually increase its softening point. Accordingly, there has been another problem that a transfer medium having good blocking property gives poor adhesion to a recording medium since a commercially available laminator can not give sufficient heater temperature.
Accordingly, the present invention has been made in view of the above problems.